King Creosote shares new song "It's Sin That's Got Its Hold Upon Us"

King Creosote unveils new song “It’s Sin That’s Got Its Hold Upon Us” – watch visualiser here
New album I DES due November 3rd
Upcoming live dates + confirmed for Other Voices Cardigan

Last month, King Creosote announced his return with his first album in seven years - I DES will be released on November 3rd, and today, Kenny Anderson unveils the second song from the record “It’s Sin That’s Got Its Hold Upon Us”.
 
“It’s Sin That’s Got Its Hold Upon Us” opens I DES, a string-drawn electronic psalm with celestial fiddle from Hannah Fisher and an earthly drum track that makes way for the wisdom of the late Phil Crowter – a pastor who circulated cassettes of his sermons in London and surrounds in the late 20th / early 21st Century. KC came into a copy via his brother Gordon, aka the Beta Band’s Lone Pigeon.
 
Anderson talks about the song: “In Autumn 2020 I began building a modular synth, recording patches onto old cassette tapes to make use of the pitch wheel on my tape deck at a later date. As the drum track rumbled to a close, these words from one of Phil Crowter’s sermons burst forth exactly as you hear them, and I had my chorus. The four short verses ought to take on different meanings depending on the listeners’ particular choice of drugs - recreational (whimsical), prescribed (personal), or mandated (diabolical).”
 
Watch the visualiser for “It’s Sin That’s Got Its Hold Upon Us” here.
Stream “It’s Sin That’s Got Its Hold Upon Us” here.
 
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They say long live the king and all, but nothing’s ever set in stone. A quarter of a century since his self-inflicted coronation, and self-released debut solo album, Kenny Anderson - DIY pop voyager, ancestral seaside home restorer, squeezebox lothario, Fife for lifer, diamond miner, hijacker of hearts, and the man also known as King Creosote - has released over 100 records (at a relatively conservative guess),  collaborated with the likes of Jon Hopkins, KT Tunstall, Beta Band’s Lone Pigeon, and had his songs covered and performed by artists including Patti Smith and Simple Minds.
 
It hasn’t bypassed a songwriter so buoyed by playful lyricism that the title of this latest release is an easy anagram of “Dies”. But bear a couple of things in mind: 1) I DES is a reference to KC’s key collaborator this time around – multi-instrumentalist and co-producer Derek O’Neill aka Des Lawson of Blantyre (2014’s From Scotland With Love, 2016’s Astronaut Meets Appleman); and 2) HRH King Creosote has been circling his demise for the entirety of his musakal life.
 
Alongside the already shared beautiful new song “Blue Marbled Elm Trees”, there are the previously released songs “Susie Mullen” and “Walter de la Nightmare” as well as the 36-minute “Drone in B#”. The record’s kaleidoscopic musical terrain plots vibraphones, accordions, e-bows, samplers, ungulates, pipes, scratched records and wine glass-drones across its landscape. But there’s common ground in the wonder of the synthesiser  – not to mention Anderson’s singular voice, and his roguish, roving, ever-evolving, gorgeous songs in the key of Fife.
 
It’s tempting to assign KC’s rekindled love for ambient and modular kicks to sublime co-conspirator Jon Hopkins (2007’s Bombshell; 2011’s Mercury Prize-shortlisted Diamond Mine), but – more directly – it’s down to seeing Nils Frahm live in Edinburgh; to an enduring fascination with loops (“because we’re always going back”); and to a book by David Stubbs. “I started listening to drones and stuff again because I read Future Days: Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany,” he offers.
 
And so here lies King Creosote: singer, songwriter, rose-tinted prevaricator, father of three beautiful daughters. He was born in the winter of 1967. Floods and blizzards raged that year, but everything grew and weathered the storm.
 
I DES is available to pre-order on gold-coloured DomMart & indies-exclusive vinyl, standard vinyl (on both vinyl formats, the 36-minute final track “Drone In B#” will come on a download card), limited double-disc CD (with “Drone in B#” on CD2) and digitally. Pre-order: DomMart | Digital
 
Upcoming live dates
October 26th – 28th – Other Voices Cardigan, Wales
Friday 3rd November – Monorail, Glasgow - solo acoustic
Saturday 4th November – Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh - matinee, sold out
Saturday 4th November – Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh - sold out
Sunday 5th November – Assai, Edinburgh - solo acoustic
Monday 6th November – Assai, Dundee - solo acoustic
Wednesday 8th November – Rough Trade East, London - sold out
Thursday 9th November – EartH Theatre, London - sold out
Friday 10th November – Resident, Brighton - solo acoustic
 
King Creosote Online:
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